How Quarreling Ayatullahs Affect Iran’s Crisis

One leading conservative ayatullah declared, during Friday prayers at Tehran University, that people protesting Iran’s election are waging war on God. Ayatullah Ahmad Khatami demanded that those calling for demonstrations be “ruthlessly and savagely” punished. Yet just a day earlier, one of the country’s most senior mullahs, Grand Ayatullah Hossein Ali Montazeri — a longtime liberal critic of the regime — branded the authorities’ response to the election protests un-Islamic. And a second leading conservative theologian, Grand Ayatullah Nasser Makarem-Shirazi, called for the dispute over the election to be resolved through “national conciliation.”

To an outside world accustomed to viewing Iranian politics as a conclave of like-minded mullahs, the current turmoil within Iran’s political and religious establishment defies explanation. The conflict between two regime insiders, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi, has created the most profound political crisis in the Islamic republic’s 30-year history. Both men proclaim their fealty to the ideals of the 1979 Islamic revolution, both claim the backing of senior clergy, and both appeal to Iranians’ sense of Shi’ite justice to rally support.

(See pictures of the lasting influence of Ayatullah Khamenei.)

The fact that such discord is possible among factions that all claim allegiance to the principle of guidance by the clergy is rooted in the distinct nature of Shi’ite Islam. Shi’ism differs from the Sunni tradition in a handful of important ways — not only in its belief in who was the legitimate heir to the Prophet Muhammad’s leadership of the community of the faithful after his death, but also in its attitudes toward political authority and devotion. But one of the most important differences is the Shi’ite tradition’s unique practice of ijtihad — the use of independent reasoning to pass new religious rulings. While Sunni Islam effectively abandoned ijtihad in the 10th century, the practice remains an essential core of Shi’ism. The result is that virtually every aspect of Shi’a doctrine, from the principle of clerical rule to minute matters of religious observance, is open to differing interpretation and has been debated throughout history.

The highest authorities in the Shi’ite tradition are grand ayatullahs, who are first and foremost jurists. And the most senior among them are the marja — jurists considered of sufficient learning that they are objects of emulation by other Shi’ites. But Shi’ites are able to choose their marja from more than 20 currently living in different parts of the world, representing a range of different interpretations of Islamic law and tradition.

Shi’ism’s fluidity has helped it adapt to the changing world; it’s useful, for example, to have a means of jettisoning 7th century punishments such as the chopping off of hands from canonic Islamic law. Liberal ayatullahs have even issued fatwas condemning suicide bombings and legal codes that discriminate against women. But the flexibility inherent in ijtihad also means that key matters of faith and politics can be the subject of eternal debate and dispute.

(See the top 10 players in Iran’s power struggle.)

That much is clear in the very history of the Islamic republic. In the early 1970s, Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini decided to challenge the repressive regime of the Shah by devising a new model for Shi’a government. Khomeini was a marja, and he interpreted the Koran and Shi’a scripture to conclude that God had decreed for Islamic government — in the absence of the faith’s 12th Imam, who would return one day in the messianic tradition and launch his own reign of justice. Khomeini called this vision of the clergy’s being given authority over governance velayat-e faqih, or guardianship of the jurist.

Many of the marja were skeptical of Khomeini’s interpretation. Some examined his sources and line of reasoning and found it lacking; others felt it ran counter to Shi’a theology, convinced that in the 12th Imam’s absence, the clergy had no place in politics at all. The powerful ayatullahs of Iraq were particularly sour on this novel approach, which they considered deviant. But because the ayatullahs’ critique of Khomeini’s model arose from the belief that the clergy had no place in politics and would be sullied by involvement in political conflict, they mounted no challenge to his movement. Indeed, the tradition most opposed to Khomeini’s vision of clerical political leadership is now referred to as “quietism.” So the dissenting ayatullahs stood by silently as Khomeini took power in 1979.

See TIME’s covers from the 1979 Islamic revolution.

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The Islamic state built by Khomeini only deepened the schisms in Qum, the shrine city outside Tehran that is the seat of Iran’s highest-ranking clerics. Even some who had been persuaded by Khomeini’s model of velayat-e faqih later turned against him, dismayed by how his notion of divine rule had devolved into a brutal earthly dictatorship. Foremost among these was Grand Ayatullah Montazeri, once Khomeini’s designated successor, who broke with him in 1988 in protest against the mass execution of political prisoners. In the years that followed, Montazeri became a vocal critic of clerical interference in politics and has suggested that Iran’s constitution should be amended to empower the elected presidency and strip the clerical Supreme Leader of absolute powers.

Forced to choose a new successor, Khomeini turned to his political protégé, Ali Khamenei, a hojjatoleslam — a cleric of junior rank to the ayatullahs’. Khamenei’s clerical credentials fell well short of what the constitution mandated, requiring Khomeini to order that it be amended to allow a non-marja to rule in the event of his death. Khamenei was promoted overnight to the rank of ayatullah, but many high-ranking clerics in Qum refused to accept his new status.

As the Islamic republic entrenched itself, the divisions in Qum fell into place. A handful of the grand ayatullahs closely allied themselves with the state establishment, profiting from this association and in turn lending their support. In Iran they are considered the regime’s marja, clerics who produce deeply conservative fatwas as the government requires them. A small clique of liberal grand ayatullahs opposed to the absolutist system of clerical rule also holds forth from Qum, issuing more progressive fatwas on controversial issues of jurisprudence. Numbering 19 in total, the grand ayatullahs form an approximate supreme court of clerical opinion. But because many — regardless of their attitudes about key issues of the day — are devoted to the principle of quietism, they offer no swing votes during moments of acute political crisis.

(See pictures of people around the world protesting Iran’s election.)

This tradition has kept Qum’s hottest debates confined behind seminary walls. But the historical aversion to public criticism of the government has been tested under Ahmadinejad’s tenure as President. During his first term in office, Ahmadinejad sought to identify his government with the hidden 12th Imam of the Shi’a tradition (referred to as the Mahdi). He declared the Mahdi the real ruler of Iran, invoked him in speeches and devoted resources to the shrine of Jamkaran, where messianically minded Iranians believe the Mahdi will emerge from occultation. This stoking of folk piety with messianic themes runs counter to classical Shi’a tradition, and Qum frowned on the President’s tactics.

Over the past four years, whispers of Qum’s displeasure with Ahmadinejad have grown steadily more audible. It is often murmured that even his staunchest backers, like the ultra-conservative Ayatullah Mesbah Yazdi, are privately disappointed with him. Senior ayatullahs complain that the President’s evocations of the Mahdi and attempts to direct lay piety are undermining and disrespectful. These reservations don’t appear to have moved Iran’s Supreme Leader, however, who sealed his allegiance to the President by approving the disputed June 12 election results. But sooner or later it will be clerics — in the 86-member Assembly of Experts — who will choose a successor to Khamenei. Some rumors suggest that even before then, the assembly might use its authority over Khamenei to rein him in. The very clerical system that put Khamenei in charge could yet move to change Iran’s direction.

See pictures of Neda Agha-Soltan, the young woman whose death has rallied the opposition.

See pictures of Iranian society.